Caption: Three of Bridgewater's cameras show bags on them on Wednesday, September 9, the morning after the town council passed a resolution to cancel its contract with Flock Safety. Photo: Anna Cubbage.
The Bridgewater Town Council this week canceled its contract with Flock Safety, following months of community unrest over widespread surveillance sparked by a report by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO.
A few hours after the resolution on Tuesday, Bridgewater officials had bagged the cameras. The council also agreed not to replace the Flock system with another automatic license plate reader system.
The cancellation comes a year after a VCIJ analysis showed Flock data collected in the sleepy, central Virginia town had been searched nearly 7 million times by law enforcement agencies across the country over a recent 12-month period.
Bridgewater resident Anna Cubbage organized local efforts requesting the town take down the surveillance. She said she was surprised by how many people responded to the advocacy against Flock in the town and how quickly that advocacy yielded a result.
“We were prepared to have to go into full gear and keep campaigning on this,” Cubbage said. “We did a lot of door knocking and canvassing in Bridgewater. We reached out to a couple of local churches, and we ended up getting a lot of our materials put into different newsletters.”
Town Police Chief Steven Cason recommended to the council that the cameras should be taken down. Cason, who was hired in August to lead the department, told VCIJ in an email that residents’ concerns outweighed the usefulness of the cameras.
“The decision to discontinue the Flock cameras was based on the belief that technology used by the police department must provide a clear benefit to public safety while also maintaining the trust and confidence of the community we serve,” Cason wrote. “My priority is to build a police department that is effective, transparent, accountable, and trusted by the community.”
Advocates say the ALPR systems are an invasion of privacy and constitute a warrantless search because the cameras collect enough vehicle data to be able to piece together residents’ movements.
Bridgewater is part of a growing number of municipalities nationwide that have suspended or rejected their contracts with Flock Safety.
In Virginia, nearly 20 municipalities have so far discontinued their use of the AI-powered system. A few others, like Henry County, will sunset their use in 2028.
A report by 404 Media showed that many cities ditching Flock cameras were quietly installing other new ALPR brands.
But Bridgewater included a resolution banning the use of any other ALPR brands without extensive consultation with residents. “The town will not reinstate Flock ALPRs (or substantially the same automatic license plate reading camera system under another name),” the town’s resolution says.
Cubbage said she was spurred into anti-Flock advocacy after reading VCIJ’s report in September 2025 about the extensive reach of the data collected by the five cameras in the town. Bridgewater has about 6,600 residents and a crime rate well below the national average.
On August 11, Cubbage led nearly 80 members of DeFlock, a volunteer group calling for the removal of the surveillance system, to the Bridgewater town council meeting. More than a dozen spoke against the use of the cameras during the meeting.
Councilmembers told the group they were not going to make an immediate decision, but promised to consider their concerns, she said.
Bridgewater hired Cason in late August, following the retirement of Chief Phillip Read.
On September 8, Cubbage’s group was back at the town council meeting in which Flock cameras were up for a resolution. This time, the new police chief was present.
The seven-member council voted unanimously to cancel the contract.
Reach Kunle Falayi at Kunle.Falayi@vcij.org.
